Scenes from Samara 5

Crayfish for sale on the sidewalk.

A neat wooden-fenced basketball / soccer court.

Friendly pack of dogs outside my building.

A decrepit former church, half now used as a photo store.

Another view on the ex-church.

The Elixir of the Peasantry

People often ask me what I eat while I'm training, if there are foods I choose for pre-race, in-race and post-racial nutrition. I tell these people they're asking the wrong question. What you should be asking is, "What do you drink?"

Kvas fermenting in a jar

The answer, as any reader of this should know by now, is kvas - a hearty, low-alcohol beverage made by fermenting black bread. It's the perfect balsam to rehydrate the weary soul of the proletarian athlete. It's like Guinness made an energy drink.

There are two types of kvas - the mass-produced kind you buy in the store, and the kind you find on almost every street corner being sold by old women. They taste different - the first is more like beer and cola, the second like beer and hard apple cider. It's because the first is really a type of soda that has been made to resemble brewed kvas, whereas the second is actually fermented and brewed alongside beer at the local brewery.

To celebrate the Obama-Medvedev love fest, Coca-Cola was offering Kvas for a limited time in Whole Foods stores in New York. More infos here.

If you are a resident of New York and see this, I will pay you back warmly and graciously and maybe even with some money.

Samara, no hotspot of soccer talent

So I decided after last week's mind-numbing 0-0 draw against Spartak that I would give Samara's soccer team the Wings of the Soviets another try. Unfortunately, yesterday's game confirmed the Wings ferocious mediocrity as they unleashed a storm of half-manliness on the unsuspecting Moscow team Lokomotiv.

Despite the fact that we had a two-man advantage for the last 25 minutes of the game - that's right the other team got two red cards - our players were unable to score a goal, and barely mustered a single respectable shot from their tired little girl thighs.

Resorting to other measures, the fans made their own excitement. Little did I realize that when I approached the ticket counter and asked for "a seat in the western bleachers for 200 rubles" I was actually asking for "a seat between two rowdy bands of gopniks ready to throw punches." After a bitch slap, a taunting hair rustle and some harsh words, a couple beefy dudes started jumping the rows to my right and hitting each other. I managed to snap this blurry photo of the police breaking it up as evidence:

There was one hero in the game - the Wings goalkeeper, Eduardo Lobos of Chile, who managed to stop a penalty in the first half and thereby save his team from even further humiliation.

Extreme training

I normally go on runs in the evening to try and avoid the heat, but today as I was sitting in my boxers feeling the sweat slip down my back I decided I might as well run and feel the sweat slip down my back. Besides, with our current heat wave what's the difference between a 7pm run at 95 degrees and a 1pm run at 100 degrees?

Sticking to the shade it actually wasn't that bad. About halfway through the run, the water in my bottle already felt like tepid tea rather than something refreshing. Luckily I found one of those old hand-pump faucets by the side of the road and gave myself a cool shower on the back of the neck.

The stats -

• Number of drunken, passed out men: 1
• Number of strays: 4
• Chased by: 1
• Number of new anti-NATO graffiti: 2

Oh, and much love to the guy who sprayed me with his hose as he was washing his car. This one was for you!

Don't worry!

A new grocery store opened around the corner from me and I walked in to check it out the other day. They were fully stocked except for a few shelves near the registers:

The sign reads: "Here there will soon be alcohol."

NATO hater strikes again

This time 100km away!

I was wandering around the office in Sukhodol and what do I see painted on the sidewalk?

It's a little faded, but it reads:

"War = NATO

1941 = 2010?

Wake up."

Scenes from Samara, 4

"Europe's biggest mosque" in Samara. This city also claims "Europe's biggest public square." Having seen both of them in person... I'm skeptical.

Medvedev oversees business in one of our offices.

Our driver catches some z's.

Where else but Russia can you see this combo? Tucked in collared shirt, camo pants, leather handbag, plastic sandals. Rock on sir, rock on.

Preliminary results

My job involves doing 5-15 interviews a day, talking to Russians and immigrants, usually at markets. Some of the results from the survey are interesting in and of themselves, but I can't probably talk about those without violating one of the many forms I signed a few weeks ago. But I can start a tally of the strange but recurring things that happen to me as I try to fill my daily quota:

• Number of times I have been asked if I am married: 5
• Number of times I have been asked by a woman to marry her and take her back to New York: 2
• Number of times I have been offered help in finding a mistress: 1
• Number of times I have been asked to show my passport to prove that I am American: 2
• Largest number of people who have surrounded me as I attempt to conduct a one-on-one interview: 8 (all male)
• Number of times I have been asked for money: 3
• Number of times I have been compared to Phillip Kirkorov:

1. Mercifully.

Бузулук

There was an article a couple of months ago in Kommersant Vlast', one of the more popular Russian weekly news magazines, about what it means to be a "province" in Russia. Basically, the article concluded, it meant anything outside of Moscow and St. Petersburg. No one outside of Russia has heard of Samara - some recognize the name as the girl from The Ring. "Samara is already provincial" one of my coworkers said today. If Samara is provincial, I don't know what you call Buzuluk, a city of 90,000 I visited today, 2.5 hours from Samara and only about 6 hours from Kazakhstan. "The sticks," I guess.


View Larger Map

It's even hard for my Russian colleagues to imagine living there. One kept tripping up on the name, mixing it up with Buguruslan, also about three hours away. As we arrived into the city, he said to the other three of us in the car "Wow, they have civilization here. And they even have cute girls," he said, pointing out the window. "We have everything here," our local guide for the day told us. Half an hour earlier she had told us to stop and eat at a roadside diner because "there's no place in the city." Her pride must have swelled as we rolled into Lenin Square.

Yesterday I visited a couple of similarly provincial towns - Surgut, Sukhodol, Sergievsk. I think the best comparison is to American frontier towns. These are places that were constructed as outposts of the Russian army on the way to the Caspian in the early 18th century. The current drought has added to the atmosphere. Everything is a faded yellow and the streets are dusty. The markets close around 3pm, and you get the impression that by 4 you might see tumbleweed in the streets.

Despite the fact that these are relatively "new" cities by comparison to Moscow or Novgorod, you get the impression that they are old in the sense of abandoned, living in the past. The roads along the way are lined by abandoned farm equipment and burnt out buildings. The tractors and machinery you do see in use are rusty. At one crossroads there stood a monument some 20 feet tall which proclaimed in big block letters "THE COLLECTIVE FARM - ONWARD TO COMMUNISM." Last week a Russian acquaintance complained that Samara was still stuck in the 90s. It could be worse, dude.

The clients were mostly sellers in the market, as usual, hawking Chinese-made underwear and t-shirts. As I interviewed my first client, a young man came to inspect her table of boxer-briefs. He pulled out a pair of black ones with red lips imprinted on the crotch and "Place for Kisses" written in Russian across the fly. Discussing the merits of this design didn't faze the woman or her daughter who worked the neighboring stall. Nor could she be persuaded when he offered 130 rubles instead of 140 (~ $4.75).

Yesterday client income was more diverse - I met a woman who oversees a restaurant-banquet hall-hotel-road stop complex, and later with a woman who sells dried fish by the side of the road. The latter took me to a small shack behind her stall and lay newspaper on a wooden bench before I sat down. She told me she needed 200,000 (~ $6600) rubles for a car. Later she asked me if life was better in the US. "Yeah," I said honestly, "I like Russia, but it's better in the US." She asked me if "even black people" live comfortably there.

The issue of prices and relative levels of comfort and black people comes up a surprising amount. One of my coworkers said that he wished he he could get a 4% loan on a car or a 6% loan on a house - like in the US - so that he could live like "a normal white person." I spoke to an Armenian cobbler today who, laughing, said that life was hard in Russia for "us negroes." But he was jovial, had a pretty wife, and was one of the few people I met who seemed content. For him, Russia was already a step up. I think there was a bit of resentment in his voice when he asked if there were a lot of Armenians in the U.S. - the United States of Armenia, he called it more than once - but only a bit. I don't think there's a lot of work for cobblers in the U.S. anymore, anyway.

Politically Motivated Hooligan Strikes Again

"NATO - Death" and assorted Nazi imagery

"NATO - get out of Russia" (I know, it's small and hard to see)

 "Death to capitalism" (kind of off topic but whatever)

Red Heat

Remember that movie Red Heat where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a Moscow narcotics officer named Ivan Danko and wears Soviet muffin hats and speaks Russian with the alacrity of a Time and Temperature recording? "DA SVIDANYUHHH, TOVARISH." Anyway, they were showing it the other day on Russian TV which was great because, for once, it meant that some of the scenes in an American movie weren't overdubbed. And the movie is surprisingly relevant, as the head gangster complains to Arnold "Why are you always picking on us Georgians?"

Here's a great scene from the movie with some Russian obscenities.

I found myself sympathizing with the governator because, actually, his job for the role and my current job are quite similar - they both involve speaking Russian phrases we're completely unfamiliar with and trying to make them sound natural. It's not often in English that I use a phrase like "loan repayment rate" and I think I'm having a hard time pulling it off in Russian.

The other day as I was interviewing a quiet, roundish Kyrgyz woman, a scruffy man with a red t-shirt approached me and asked what I was doing. (This isn't so unusual - people see you in the market talking to one of their neighbors and they're immediately interested. I've been asked if I sell sim-cards, or if I work for the police.) Then he asked why I speak Russian strangely. I told him because I'm not Russian, I'm American. "You mean your parents are Russian and you live in America, right?" "No," I said. "What, you're pure?" "Yup."

Then he asked me to show him my passport. I politely declined and tried to continue the interview. But now I know that was my mistake. I should have thrown him across the room or ripped off his fake leg and extracted a bag of cocaine, then said a one word phrase like "Hooligans" in an English-Austrian accent before I threw him naked out of a banya. Next time.

From the annals of donkey parasailing

If you have yet to see it, please amuse yourself while observing due respect for the suffering of the poor animal by watching video of some leotards sending a donkey parasailing in the south of Russia:

Scenes from Samara, 3

My street.

Children playing in the courtyard. 

The words on the right read: "graffiti is fridom".

Waiting for the bus.

Went to the soccer game, FC Krylya Sovetov Samara (translates as "Wings of the Soviets") versus CSKA Moscow. Samara was ranked 6th going in, CSKA 2nd. Despite the amazing team name, we lost 1-0.

CSKA fans get rowdy (and 3rd degree-burned?) for their victory.

Scenes from Samara, 2

A fruit/vegetable seller on my street.

A FINCA billboard.

Kirov Market, where a lot of our clients work.

Some guys playing ping-pong after they closed their stalls.

A guy pushes shoe boxes on a cart at the market.

Scenes from Samara, 1

T

The courtyard outside my apartment.

The embankment and beach. Stretches for two miles.

The line outside Zhigulevskoe Beer Factory for discounted beer (35rubles / ~$1 per liter).

More on Running in Russia

After Vladimir (a fairly small city) and St. Petersburg (a city with a fair number of large parks), running in Samara has been much more of an adventure. Occasionally I see someone else running, but it's rare and possible they are trying to catch a bus.

There are a few elementary schools by my house which have old, decrepit asphalt tracks, rutted, chewed up and great for rolling an ankle. As always, the streets are dusty and exhausted.

I found one track and field by the University of Tourism which is a bit better, half covered with those 1.5'x1.5' rubber flooring tiles you often see in looker rooms or playgrounds or on patios.

Things I've encountered while running in Samara:
-Chased by dog (x2)
-Drunken passed out person (x2)
-One drunken man falling down the stairs in front of me
-One man asking me, mid run, for 3 rubles
-10+ dog pack (x2)

Opinion page grafitti

While other hooligans are out plastering gang signs and expletives, our local troublemakers are busying drumming protest against NATO.

In two separate locations by my office I've seen the following phrases: "NATO in Russia = War," "NATO - get out of Russia," "NATO = War" and more creatively "Medveputin wants war - we are destroyed!"

I can imagine some officer in the Russian army, sneaking out at night in fatigues, painting the town red with warnings about western military alliances...

Самара

Moved to Samara. I took the two-nights train from St. Petersburg, which at 40 hours is the longest I've ever spent on a train. Luckily I put up for "Kupe", which is basically the business class of the Russian rail system, one large step up from "Platskart" which, in summer, can be an adventure for the senses.

In Kupe, four people share a closed cabin - in Platskart, 54 people share an open wagon. This is a huge difference, especially when many passengers buy and consume dried fish sold by leathery old babushkas along the tracks. Other than the layout and fish, there were three small changes I noticed: the toilet had a "hygienic" plastic cover; the tea cups came with saucers underneath; there was air conditioning. Ok, AC's a big difference.

My cabin-mates were a 20-something female and another 20-something female traveling with her 40-something father. Both girls were cute. The father, in addition to his oversized plaid capri shorts, wore a tattoo on his arm which read "Army Technical Group." This meant that I felt secure from any hooligans straying into our wagon, but nervous about my eyes straying in the cabin.

Here is the summary of our conversation over the 40 hours:

Father: "Is this Chapaevsk?"
Me: "Yes."
Father: "How long do we have?"
Me: "30 minutes."

After spending two weeks out of the country, it was good to get some language practice in.

- - - - - - - - - -

We stopped in a lot of faceless towns, the longest pause for 45 minutes. We'd climb out of the train, most to smoke or buy from the babushkas hawking beer, chips, more dried fish, berries.

At one of the longer stops on the morning of the second day, I saw two of the women conductors racing across the tracks, pushing each other up onto the platform like slapstick, then shuffle into the city as stridently as their blue uniform skirts would allow. Hungry, I wandered into the station and found a small bakery where I bought three pastries with tvorog in them. The woman behind the counter was using an abacus to calculate change.

I went back outside and sat on a bench, eating until the 5-minute departure notice. As I sat, I noticed the women conductors running back to the train in their blue uniforms and decorative epaulettes. They were carrying bags of blankets, linens and curtains. Then I notice four or five other women doing the same thing. Who knew? Ivanovo, or Chapaevsk, or Syzran - you beguiling enchantress city of the Volga, bedding capital of central Russia.

Helsinki

Fun fact: in Swedish Helsinki is called Helsingfors, which sounds to me like a medieval slayer of dragons. I uploaded some unsorted pics. Also, more were uploaded to the Riga and Tallinn folder.

Helsinki Pics

Pics from Riga, Tallinn

Howdy. Here are some unsorted pics from recent stops in Riga and Tallinn, great cities both. Onward to Helsinki!

Pics

The racism of Russian pricing

Ok, maybe not racism. But nationalism or certainly linguo-centrism.

Backing up. Last summer I was in St. Pete for a few days, went to the Russian Museum. I was with a friend whose last name is Morrison. We all had Russian student cards, which you can usually present to museums to get in for free or a very discounted rate. (Sidenote: I have not paid for a single museum this time around, and I've been to a lot). My buddy handed the woman his card, she looked at it, said: "Morrison. That's not a Russian last name" - and charged him the full amount. I got in for free.

But here's a pic I took the other day at the Pushkin apartment museum that really captures the whole stupid system. It's so transparently obvious, the scheme. Even if you don't read Russian:

Close up:

"Using of cameras in the musuem - 300rbl; Videocameras - 500 rbl"

Guess what the Russian says right above it with 100ryb and 200 ryb right next to it. Smooth Russia, smooth.

Running and kvas

Today was a long run day. It was also the Cleveland half marathon (go Nick!), so I had extra motivation for my training. It was also a glorious day, which made me immediately want to get out there once I got up. On good days, I head north to a constellation of three parks/islands with a lot of great paths and trails. Unfortunately, I didn't think about how hot it might be and how unhyrdated I was.

About five or six miles in, I really started hurting. I didn't think the sun could be so hot here. My mouth turned to paste.

These parks are swamped on the weekend with locals relaxing, riding small amusements, rollerblading, being carefree. I started to hate the new Russian consumerism when I couldn't find a single water fountain a n y w h e r e.

Sometimes when I run, I get extremely hungry for any fatty food I catch on a breeze - burgers, fries, onion rings... Today, panting and starchy, all I could think about was the 2 liter bottle of Kvas I had waiting for me in the fridge at home (still 5 miles away). Kvas, for those who don't know, is one of Russia's gifts to the world of food. It is a very low/no alcohol drink, made from grain, which tastes sort of like a hearty but sweet dark beer. It's like delicious liquid brown bread which quenches your thirst and fills you up. This is what I needed.

I started fantasizing that I would see one of those old Soviet drink machines, the kind where there's a communal cup and you probably pay a kopeck, like the one here:

All those giddy people in the parks with their balloons and Pepsi Max. I bet in Soviet days runners didn't have this problem, I bet the communists respected a good amateur athlete.

Coming down Petrogradskaya, hitting the final stretch, what do I notice? About ten different people carrying the same brand of kvas. At first I thought I was hallucinating, my mind taunting me and projecting my innermost desires. But then I had a revelation, the kind of inspired insight certain agnostics must get when they see the Virgin Mary in a grilled cheese. These kvas bottles must mean something - it can't be just a coincidence! Sure enough, at metro station Gorkovskaya, two young, blonde haired angels were handing out free bottles of the glorious elixir as part of a promotional event. Even the branding was apt - "Russian Gift."

Maybe capitalism works after all.

Dostoevsky Metro too depressing

Moscow's renowned for its themed metro stations - the molecular designs at Mendeleev or the martial statues at Partizanskaya.

They're building a new stop, named in honor of Dostoevsky. It hasn't opened yet, apparently behind schedule. Why? Well, some are speculating that the murals are too depressing - that riders don't want to see a man raising a gun to his head or Roskolnikov attacking two women with a hatchet. 

According to the Moscow Times, a psychologist "warned that the murals could make the station a popular place to commit suicide."

No fish restoran

This ad for the Casa del Myasa (House of Meat) serves up a nicely rhyming bilingual title, two alphabets and three languages:

Kunstkamera

Even though I still have a paper left to write, I'm occasionally dragged out of my apartment by a feeling of human solidarity. When that happens, I make sure that it's to see something really unique so I don't waste any of the time I could be sitting at my black Ikea desk.

Today I went to the Kunstkamera - the first museum founded in the city, by Peter himself. If I remember correctly, it was free in Peter's day and he even offered refreshments to patrons as an incentive to visit and learn. By virtue of my Russian student card, it was free for me too (take that German tourists!).

It's not your average museum. Peter was into oddities, he collected any weird and unusual thing he could get his hands on. And all of these specimens were put on display in the Hall of Monsters (what it's called, to this day). Here you'll find stuffed two-headed calves, the skeleton of a giant, drawings of court dwarfs and an obscene number of misshapen fetuses in jars.

Here is a very blurry picture of another cool exhibit - all of the teeth Peter personally extracted from subjects while learning dentistry:

(To the right of the tooth-rack, you can also see a head in a jar.) For me, the strangest part wasn't so much seeing the unborn and multi-limbed, as the fact that each of the display cases with human parts also contained one taxidermied exotic animal. Here are some fetuses with a sea turtle:

Peter offered monetary rewards for any citizen who would bring an unusual or rare specimen of the natural world for his museum. In doing so, he hoped to wean his subjects off superstitious beliefs, that they would see how diverse and unusual creation is. It's only fitting that he contribute something himself. Below, a plaster of his face, taken after death:

The museum isn't limited to the Hall of Monsters - there's also a whirlwind tour of exotic peoples and tribes. I felt a touch of stolen pride when I came across the Iroquois display...

...complete with a small placard about lacrosse...

A riddle

What time was it when this picture was taken?

11pm! White Nights approach!

Soon I'll be able to tan while I sleep! Awesome!

Victory Day, take 65

Even if a couple days late... Happy Victory Day! Or as Russians might say through Google Translate, "I congratulate you with our day of great victory!"

Rocket launchers were rolling through Red Square, veterans were collecting flowers, banners hung from every lamppost... and there were too many people to see anything. I went around 10am to the parade on Palace Square (a little late) and got to commune with the crowd and the backs of peoples heads.

Luckily one of my friends nabbed a good spot, so unknown to him I've taken some of his pictures from Facebook and posted them here as my own. Behold:

Also, this isn't from the parade, obviously. It's his apartment building. Just an example of the kind of poster that's been ubiquitous through April and early May.

Also there are some great pictures of rocket launchers superimposed on Orthodox churches over at Foreign Policy.

Cool day, May the Third

 Today's a cool day for three reasons, the most important of which is that it's my brothers birthday. But it's also a day off in Russia from the May Day holiday weekend - if you were in Russia bro, you wouldn't be at work right now!

Also, today was the first day that sunset hit 10pm! 10pm! Crazy! White nights here we come!

!

For all the Ithacans...

The plot thickens - another contender:

Incredulity, mainly

Here's an article from the Moscow Times, appropriate for the day I did my first 10 miler of the season: Joggers Battle with Dogs, Locals and Incredulity.

Some great observations in the article that really ring true.

A former Moscow Times reporter: “If I ran through after 2 p.m., I’d get heckled by groups of men drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. A couple times, some of them sarcastically jogged along with me, laughing uproariously. They thought I was hilarious.” (Haven't had this experience yet, but I've imagined it happening a hundred times. I know one day some teenager is gonna be drunk and want to make a scene for his girlfriend.)

Representative from the Russian Athletics Federation: “We have nothing to do with people who just run around outside for exercise.” (Frank, but true. Provides a good tone for the article.)

A former NY Times correspondent in Moscow: “A television documentary warning Russians against associating with Western journalists showed some film that the secret police surreptitiously took of my daily 3-mile run through the city. 'While pretending to engage in ‘physical culture,’ the announcer ominously explained, I was really carrying secret messages between the United States Embassy and nefarious Russian dissidents.”

I guess I can't complain to much about the pollution and stares - never had the KGB on my ass!

May Day

There's a common bit of graffiti you often see around Russia - a swastika that has been circled and crossed out or written over. Unfortunately it's not a negation, just an indication that the two forces are locked in a low level propaganda war. Occasionally you hear about fights or beatings, nationalist skinheads taking on anti-fascist youth groups. Rarely do you get to see these emotions and sentiments in the street - unless, of course, there is a public parade chaperoned by hundreds of riot officers. Like on May Day.

Soon after waking up, I opened my window and almost immediately heard chanting and marching bands coming from the direction of Nevsky Prospekt. I headed over, enjoyed myself despite the weather. The flags made for nice blotches of color on a gray morning and it's rare that you get to see giant portraits of Stalin in public:

(Brought to you by the Movement of Stalinists, really)

All the major political parties were there - United Russia, A Just Russia, the Liberal Democrats. And of course the Communists, which sounds sexy to outsiders but is often a parade of the elderly.

The fun got started with a group that may have been the outlawed National Bolshevik Party, (at least by matching their symbols to those on this site). I don't remember which slogans they were chanting, I was too terrified by their flags - the incredibly imposing black hammer and sickle, and a white circle on a red background containing a grenade (sorry if you can't see that because of the picture quality, but scroll down on the site above for copies).

They were soon followed by an anti-fascist bloc who carried signs saying "Freedom. Equality. Solidarity" and "Against Racism." They tended to be young and often had their faces covered by scarves or masks.

And pulling up the rear there was the Russian Imperialist Movement, which I believe is a small Orthodox political party advocating the reunification of "historically" Russian lands under the banner of the Russian Empire. They may be associated with the small monarchist parties. They were chanting "Россия - русская власть!" or "Russia means (ethnic) Russian power!" They had two other signs, one which said "Russians are getting fewer, immigrants are becoming greater" and "Deportation, not legalization." Next stop Arizona. Their site is down, but there's a cached version here.